Absconding Bulgarian nabbed in connection with skimming racket

While the man secured on Wednesday was identified as Peter Velikov, police said that the other person’s name is Lion Markova, also from Bulgaria. Investigations revealed that the men were Facebook friends and met after they reached the city.

While Lion Markova, a yoga instructor, reached Chennai on April 24 and had rented a room at a hotel in Semmanchery, Peter Velikov (50), a taxi driver back in his country, and came to the city on a tourist visa on April 3. He was staying in another hotel in the same locality, said the investigation officer.

Recently, the Semmanchery police received a tip off from the staffer of the hotel that he found around 42 debit cards in Lion’s room while cleaning. A team of police personnel raided the hotel rooms and seized as many as 50 cloned debit and credit cards, Rs 10 lakh in cash and Rs 3 lakh worth foreign currency, skimmer devices and a laptop. He was arrested and were handed over to the bank fraud prevention wing of Central Crime Branch for further investigation. Based on his inputs, Lion Markova was also secured.